Beneath the crisp and wintry carpet hid
A million buds but stay their blossoming
And trustful birds have built their nests amid
The shuddering boughs, and only wait to sing
Till one soft shower from the south shall bid
And hither tempt the pilgrim steps of Spring.

Awake! the land is scattered with light, and see,
Uncanopied sleep is flying from field and tree.

Awake, My Heart, to Be Loved, l. 13-14.

The storm is over, the land hushes to rest:
The tyrannous wind, its strength fordone,
Is fallen back in the west.

The Storm is Over, The Land Hushes to Rest, l. 1-3.

The broad cloud-driving moon in the clear sky
Lifts o’er the firs her shining shield,
And in her tranquil light
Sleep falls on forest and field.
See! sleep hath fallen: the trees are asleep:
The night is come. The land is wrapt in sleep.

And now impatiently despairest, see
How nought is changed: Joy's wisdom is attired
Splended for others' eyes if not for thee:
Not love or beauty or youth from earth is fled:
If they delite thee not, 'tis thou art dead.

I have loved flowers that fade,
Within whose magic tents
Rich hues have marriage made
With sweet unmemoried scents:
A honeymoon delight,
A joy of love at sight,
That ages in an hour
My song be like a flower!

[Note: the spelling and punctuation of this poem, as seen in the excerpts linked here, are Bridges' own. In his later years Bridges was interested in spelling and typography reform which would be based more closely on the actual pronunciation of words.]

Man's Reason is in such deep insolvency to sense,
that tho' she guide his highest flight heav'nward, and teach him
dignity morals manners and human comfort,
she can delicatly and dangerously bedizen
the rioting joys that fringe the sad pathways of Hell.

Book I, lines 57-61.

Nature hav no music; nor would ther be for thee
any better melody in the April woods at dawn
than what an old stone-deaf labourer, lying awake
o'night in his comfortless attic, might perchance
be aware of, when the rats run amok in his thatch?

Book I, lines 83-87.

Beauty is the highest of all these occult influences,
the quality of appearances that thru' the sense
wakeneth spiritual emotion in the mind of man.

Book II, lines 842-844.

Beauty, the eternal Spouse of the Wisdom of God
and Angel of his Presence thru' all creation.

Book IV, lines 1-2.

Repudiation of pleasur is a reason'd folly
of imperfection. Ther is no motiv can rebate
or decompose the intrinsic joy of activ life,
whereon all function whatsoever in man is based.

Book IV, lines 459-462.

I know
that if odour were visible as colour is, I'd see
the summer garden aureoled in rainbow clouds.

Book IV, lines 492-492.

The name of happiness is but a wider term
for the unalloy'd conditions of the Pleasur of Life,
attendant on all function, and not to be deny'd
to th' soul, unless forsooth in our thought of nature
spiritual is by definition unnatural.

Book IV, lines 533-537.

Seeking unceasingly for the First Cause of All,
in question for what special purpose he was made,
Man, in the unsearchable darkness, knoweth one thing:
that as he is, so was he made; and if the Essence
and characteristic faculty of humanity
is our conscient Reason and our desire of knowledge,
that was Nature's Purpose in the making of man.